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Not Fade Away: Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ Turns 40

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In Not Fade Away, we take a look at the legacy of some of the greatest albums of the past few decades – some iconic, some lesser known – as they celebrate significant anniversaries. Here, we take a look at one of the most iconic and best selling albums of all time, Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon.”

Pink Floyd‘s 1973 masterpiece Dark Side Of The Moon opens with a piece called “Speak to Me.” An album about conflict, aging and madness, it was perhaps unlikely subject matter for an album that would speak to more people than almost any other record ever. The numbers and figures do the talking. Over 15 million copies sold in the U.S. alone; over 700 weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart, including one week at No. 1. Not bad for an album inspired, at least in part, by the mental deterioration of the band’s original leader, Syd Barrett, who’d been dismissed from the group years earlier. On one hand, Dark Side was haunted by Barrett. On the other, it marked the moment where they truly found their voice as a Syd-less quartet.

Why does it still stand the test of time? Somehow, the production on the album has never sounded dated, as many other albums from the era seem to. But also, despite the fact that Floyd was never seen as a band of relatable “every men” (indeed, they were so “faceless” that no one seemed to mind when their chief songwriter Roger Waters quit the band in 1985 and they went on to record without him), the lyrics were so universal that anyone, old or young, rich or poor, could relate. “Dig that hole, forget the sun/When at last the work is done/Don’t sit down, it’s time to dig another one” is as universal as anything in Springsteen’s catalog.

In 1997, this writer spoke to Pink Floyd’s keyboardist Richard Wright, who passed away in 2008, about the impact of Dark Side Of The Moon, and about a funny rumor about the album that had cropped up at the time.

This was still years before the ’70s lineup of Floyd – Wright, bassist Waters, guitarist/singer David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason – reunited for 2005’s Live 8 concert. Bad blood was still in the air between Waters and the rest of the group, particularly Wright, who Waters fired after 1979’s The Wall. But when thinking back about the making of Dark Side, Wright said, “I do have good memories of recording the album, it was a very creative time for the band. Roger, myself and Dave were all co-writing the whole thing.”

He explained that Floyd had been working out the album in front of audiences before they went into the studio. “Before it became Dark Side Of The Moon, it used to be a piece called ‘Eclipse’ that we played live,” he said. “Later on, we went to Abbey Road [Studios] and turned it into Dark Side Of The Moon.”

While Dark Side sent the band from being a cult favorite to stadium headliners, it was the beginning of the end of the group as an equal partnership among members. Waters would begin to exercise more control in the years to come.